The photos above aren't that great, but they do illustrate carrying on a family tradition of summer canning. The Jurgens inherited a mature tart-cherry tree from the previous owners of their home. For the past two summers, we've frozen them in one-quart bags for use in pies and other recipes. This works well except they do take up quite a bit of freezer space.
So, this year we've tried an experiment. Having hauled out Grandma Valeck's old canning kettle, we turned 32 cups of cherries into what we believe (and sincerely hope) will be homemade pie filling. At this point, all we know is that it looks great in the jars and we're feeling a certain degree of satisfaction about the whole thing. Satisified enough that there are plans to pick more cherries tomorrow.
Glenn offered a great suggestion, considering the temps ran into the high 90's when we did this on July 18. We put the water-bath canner outdoors on the camping ring to at least keep that heat out of the house.
The proof won't be in the pudding, but the pie, when we open the first jar!
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